Half the World Away

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

‘Mummy!’ Finn’s voice, the joy in it, unseats me.

‘Hello, Finn.’ Mine squeaks. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine. Isaac’s home. Is Lori coming back now?’

I take a breath. Dare I promise? She’s still very sick. Will I jinx things if I say yes? ‘Hope so,’ I say.

‘And you?’ Finn says.

‘Yes.’

‘Then we could get my rocket from the museum.’

‘Yes,’ I say.

I picture him, sitting on the floor next to the dog, nodding to himself now that everything is sorted out.

‘OK, put Daddy on now. Bye-bye. Love you.’

A woman stops me as I’m leaving to go back to the hospital. ‘Mrs Maddox?’ She says something about press and turns to signal to a man who carries a camera with a microphone attached.

‘We’d just like a word with you about your daughter.’

‘No, no, I’m sorry.’ I veer round her and keep walking.

‘Mrs Maddox?’ She hurries after me. ‘Just a comment. You must be very happy to have found her, to know she’s safe.’

Tears swim in my eyes. ‘Yes. But I can’t…’ I bleat. ‘I’m sorry.’ I walk on and she leaves me be.

Peter Dunne comes to the hotel early on Monday morning with a copy of the Sichuan daily newspaper. The story is inside, complete with a picture of Superintendent Yin and his team of detectives outside the police station, as well as the photograph of Lori.

Peter Dunne translates for me: ‘Chengdu police confirm that Mr Bradley Carlson, a US citizen, has been detained after the remains of a Chinese woman were discovered at his home in the Qingyang area of the city. Carlson is also being questioned about the kidnapping of missing Briton Lorelei Maddox, who was released from captivity on Saturday and is now receiving care at Huaxi hospital. Superintendent Yin said, “These unspeakable crimes have shocked the harmonious community of Chengdu and will not be tolerated. The suspect is now being questioned and justice will be done. The team of detectives have worked very hard on this investigation and their efforts are to be congratulated.” ’

All hail, Superintendent Yin.

I tell Peter Dunne about the journalist outside the hotel, how I fled.

‘It’s for the best,’ he says. ‘The Chinese are going to want to control the story as much as they can. Besides, you’ve still not made your statements to the police, have you? I understand they want to speak to you both as soon as possible.’

I sigh. It’s the last thing I feel like doing.

‘You are witnesses,’ he says.

‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘I know.’

When I arrive, early afternoon, to relieve Tom, he is on the phone.

‘In a few days, maybe, not now, everything’s still-’

‘Who is it?’ I say.

‘Dawn. She’s with Shona and Oliver – they’ve just heard. I’ve told them they can’t visit Lori yet but they wanted to see us.’

‘Let them come,’ I say, ‘just for a little while.’

‘Here?’

‘The hotel. I’ll see them,’ I say.

He cocks his head – am I sure?

I nod. ‘Unless you want…’

‘No,’ Tom says. ‘I’ll stay on.’

I nod. He tells Dawn where to go and stresses it can’t be for long.

Dawn bursts into tears, inconsolable. ‘Mrs Maddox, how could he do that? How could anyone do that?’

I hug her. She’s so young, they’re all so young, and I hate that Bradley has brought such horror and corruption into their lives. I hate that I ever harboured suspicions about them, about the possibility of a conspiracy, when they were just her friends all along.

We do what we have to, like survivors of an accident or people faced with the sudden shock of betrayal: we pick it over, mining the disbelief, reviewing, rewinding, reiterating all the nuggets of hindsight, the audacity of Bradley’s conduct. In our case the lies, the duplicity, the pretence he effected and the stark violence of his actions.

Our own clumsy little inquest.

When I think how close we were to losing her, that if we’d left it to the police we would’ve been too late, I want to throw up.

Shona seems angry more than anything. ‘How could we not know?’ she says abruptly, when there’s a pause in the conversation. She trembles and says, ‘How could we have been so stupid?’ She shakes her hands, palms splayed, and the bracelets on her arm chime.

‘He’s clever,’ I say. ‘He fooled everyone. All that rubbish about her going on holiday to confuse us.’

Oliver is leaving. I follow him out and say, ‘Can I ask? When we left messages you didn’t reply. Why not?’ I remember thinking Oliver might be hiding something and was avoiding us. I’m also still thinking, Could we have got there any sooner? ‘Messages,’ I say, holding up my phone. I’m welded to it.

He blinks rapidly, eyes swimming behind the thick lenses, and then looks down. He grasps one of his hands in the other and says, ‘I don’t like talk phone.’ His face flushes.

‘You don’t like to talk on the phone?’ I say.

He nods.

Some phobia, a hang-up. That’s all it is. I almost laugh.

‘OK. OK,’ I say.

‘Zài jiàn,’ he says.

‘Bye-bye.’

I promise to tell Dawn and Shona as soon as Lori is fit for visitors, then walk back to the hospital so Tom can get some rest.

I am bracing myself for when she comes round, determined not to fall apart at the pitiable sight of her.

She smells still, an awful stench, like putrid meat, but the doctor reassures me that there is no sign of blood poisoning, which would almost certainly kill her.

The vigil is terrifying and also profoundly boring. Which seems like sacrilege. The minutes stretch out. Sometimes I doze, or I stare at my phone, wander from website to website. Frustrated time and again to find them censored, not accessible, stuck behind China’s great firewall.